What happens if power or internet goes out?

  1. What happens if the power goes out? Does this affect the schedules in any way?

  2. What happens if the Internet goes out?

  3. I Want to place one in a far corner of my property that does not receive much of a signal. How much of a signal is necessary to make it work properly?

Thanks

@RainHusk

  1. The schedules are store in the cloud. Without power Rachio won’t be able to turn on the valves as it will also be cold and dark.

  2. Loss of internet depends on the type of schedule one is running. If one is running a Flex schedule it how two weeks of forward weather that it will use to estimate when to water. After that Rachio will water every third day. If one is running Fixed schedules, Rachio will continue to run those schedules as they are downloaded to the controller. No adjustments for a new month or delays due to wind, rain, etc. will happen without the internet.

  3. Signal strength can vary with time of day and foliage density, so while it may work one day, it may not the next. I’d suggest getting an ethernet over powerline device that provides a WiFi signal and place it out there with the Rachio as the Rachio will need to have power too. Depending on how the power is provided to the far corner this may or may not work due to how ethernet over powerline works. There will be two devices, one inside with a hard wired ethernet connection to the network and the remote one that can prodcast WiFI for the Rachio. Netgear makes such a product. One doesn’t need much bandwidth back through the powerline for Rachio to use.

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  1. I am assuming that if the power goes out, and comes back on sometime before the schedule is set to go, it will still work on time and it is not affected by the prior power outage?

  2. What do you mean by it being cold and dark? What is cold and dark when the power goes out?

  3. I am currently using a fixed schedule, I assumed that this was saved to the device, but you said “as they are downloaded to the controller”?

  4. Follow up to the previous question, if using a fixed schedule and the internet is not working well then my sprinklers may not go off?

Thanks!!!

@RainHusk -

  1. Correct.

  2. The Rachio won’t have power so it will be cold and dark (the controller itself).

  3. Correct. All schedules are downloaded from the cloud to the controller. Flex is constantly updated for two weeks out.

  4. Nope. Once a fixed schedule is downloaded to the Rachio controller it will continue to run without internet access. What will be missed is any rain or weather skip based on internet weather (if there is a rain sensor wired into the Rachio it will still be active).

I guess the one part I am confused by is if it is a fixed schedule, are the schedules downloaded all at once, or weekly? Can a fixed schedule operate everyday for weeks/months without having any internet access?

Thanks.

When a schedule is created or edited, it is sent to the controller immediately (if connected).

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See if this answers your key questions 1 & 2 about lack of power:
https://support.rachio.com/en_us/what-if-my-controller-goes-offline-SyboPIkFv

As for 3, that’s a dance between your AP and the controller. You’ll have to try.

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